[3.0] Frost Giant - Frostblades Juggernaught - Guardians, Shaper, Labs, HC viable 600K-1M dps tank
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Greetings Exiles,
Why play a glass cannon when you can play a regular old cannon. I've played in 4 or 5 leagues over the past few years and always followed builds developed by others. Usually some squishy raider that gets ripped all too easily, so this league I wanted to try something tanky. I started out looking at the "size doesn't matter" double strike tank build and the author suggested frost blades as a viable skill. And after checking out sidefx's raider frostblades guide I decided to try and combine the two builds It ended up working out better than I ever expected and I've even had people ask me to post my build so here it goes. I'll keep it short and sweet and assume you are probably smart enough to read the two guides I just mentioned and put them together yourself if you wanted. This was the best character I had ever played until I tried out doomfletch a little later in the league. But there are still plenty of times when I want to bring in the tank for easymode. Pro and Con Overview Pros: +High durability: 30-50k armour, 6-7k life, 5 endurance charges +Cold damage is heavily reduced (10-15% max cold res) +Critical strikes are negated +Cannot be stunned +Facetank most fights +Everything is chilled / frozen and stunned (and even maimed) +Good single target and AoE damage +Versatile gearing options to make most fights much easier +Easy to gear and get started +End game gear is not that expensive (maybe 15ex total) +Plays great with Lion's Roar flask Cons: -Elemental reflect was problematic without ToH and another source of max cold res -Weakest to lightning and chaos damage (dominus, overgrown ruin, %lightning damage maps mods) -Uses 7 skills to maximize dps (frostblades, orb of storms, enduring cry, vaal haste, ancestral protector, ice golem) + whirling blades for mobility. Really only use them all for tough bosses. -Cannot maintain frenzy charges without killing frozen enemies (15% dps loss) -only 2 jewel sockets available -89% of mana reserved -Attack speed on whirling blades is not that high, but still stays at the front in groups Bad map mods
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-Elemental reflect, use sibyl's lament or die
-no leech, could turn off some auras and run a mana flask but why -max res on an elemental damage boss, elemental damage is our only weakness and this makes it worse and hitting a big reflect mob on -max res can be a rip. -%damage as lightning, not the worst mod but can be an issue on something like.. minotaur. -temp chains, really messes with leech tanking. A few of the times I've ripped were temp chains, mostly because I was being completely brazen and my diamond flask of warding expired. Besides that I can't think of anything that's caused me problems. Skill Tree 35 Points - rush vitality void and take versatility for int if needed 77 Points - get to the claw circle, pick up jewel sockets for Fight for survivals, life nodes and damage nodes lvl 95 / 118 points - transition out of vitality void, fill out life and damage
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https://poeplanner.com/AAkAAQMACREAAH7G2FhjPfyMz_ZIXz8UIO8OUEfkUcEEeWipbnfjAdyE2Ud-vTZlTb6nL8zBgraKYuyE79rBd9dW-u4Ogazkaql5fyv9brF8w-aNuTB8UUeNvwW1wuy0xWKsbIwV_Y2BwaB4GW9X459noId2Sn2NfSP2TZIuU9NvN9TtP6LqEuF07QUtGbQtgxUg9qPveujW53STkJoXkoBtbLVI1EKEb3X9Fr8mlWHiVUuMNonTcFLAGngNtfI1kti9035vO-dUJP3_3mSvRfSKONYH4tXtQSzphrNEDcjw_gryRTrh_o9N43rvnaoUdcjM74_fb31zrQnAAQbGXaTd1cse0jgAAAAAAA==
The next best damage notable is Strong Arm and the next best life notable would be Revenge of the Hunted. The Melee Damage and Life node at the Marauder start point is also good. And more life is accessible by pathing to the ranger start point from Finesse. The weakest damage node is Fangs of Frost in total cost per point of travel. Bandits
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2 skill points is the best
Aliria might make leveling slightly easier Oak seems excessive - physical damage is not an issue Ascendancy Order
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Undeniable, Unflinching, Unrelenting, Unbreakable
May want to run determination until Unbreakable is unlocked and a high armour chest piece is equipped Skill links
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6Link
Frostblades-Hypothermia-Elemental Damage-Multistrike-Ruthless-Melee Phys -Swap in Cold Penetration for Hypothermia if the boss has too much hp to chill or if the map has % chance to avoid elemental ailments. Alternatively just use Maim. Drop melee phys for 5L. 4Links Mobility Whirling Blades-Fortify-Ice Golem-Blood Magic Orb / Curse / power charges Orb of Storms-Power Charge on Crit-Curse on Hit-Frostbite Auras Hatred-Arctic Armour-Purity of Ice-Enlighten 4 Without enlighten 4 and AA reduced mana reservation helm enchant (and Druidic Rite notable) it may not be viable to run all these auras. Hatred can be dropped for Herald of ice until then. And use a +max cold res shield or reflect might rip ya. I also have a gear swap pair of spiked gloves with one red to run Purity of Fire (phoenix, beacon, high gardens, etc) Vitality (nice for labs) or Determination (kicks armour into high gear, nice for Minotaur or Chimera) 3Links Vaal Haste-Ancestral protector-Enduring Cry Will swap in Stone Golem for ancestral protector for labs - extra easy If you don't want to bother casting the totem or think it's ineffective use increased duration. CWDT-Enfeeble-Frostbomb Assassin's Mark can be used instead of Enfeeble, I tried it, and swapped back. There is a bit of flexibility here, for instance, drop enfeeble, swap ice golem into the CWDT loop and faster attacks or ancestral protector into the whirling blades loop (swapping AP allow using ID with vaal haste and the warcry). Blood rage is a viable skill though we don't benefit from the leech. If you want to run vaal pact you can swap in rallying cry though this would leave it to the ascendancy to generate endurance charge. Gear My current gear
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As you can see the build only needs to pick up some int. It's 136 int for orb of storms +4 chain (lvl 17) or 111 int for the other skills. 155 int if you want to be able to run purity of lightning. An int implicit necklace and a single good int hit on the boots, ring. or amulet is enough. For purity of lightning I have to use a rare jewel with int. Note that I'm only using those gloves because they are godlike and better than any pair of spiked or gripped gloves I could find. I used gripped gloves before because they are easy to get 3g 1b and spiked gloves for my aura swap set with 2g 1b 1r. For the boots I got two toned with evasion / es for the easy 4blue coloring. In my opinion the body armour and helm alone provide an excessive amount of armour and getting evasion on the other pieces would be best. Probably stick with armour for the shield since evasion shields have movement speed instead of life. Alternate gearing options for making fights easy
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I tried to set it up so I can swap the shield or one ring without dropping below max res. Resistances are overcapped to compensate for ele weakness map mod so it would have problems swapping on an ele weakness map. Marble amulet is for labs easy mode. Flasks
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Alternate flasks to make fights even easier - I swap out atziri's
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All of this swapping stuff is mostly unnecessary. It's to make fights really easy. Stat priorities / Jewels
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Life, flat phys, attack speed, %elemental damage with attacks, %phys, multi, crit, flat cold damage
For jewels 2x Fight for Survival For the 2-3 rares get life, attacks speed (claw, 1 hand, shield are best), %damage (cold, phys), then multi / crit. I usually just check PoB for jewels and I wanted the attack speed for whirling blades Pantheon
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Yugul - no options here or the reflect is killer
Soul of Lunaris is my staple Soul of Solaris can be good but I never bother swapping Soul of Arakaali is nice for certain areas or map mods (damage over time, shock, chaos damage) Reflect
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Many reflect mobs will die to the AoE from frostblades and you won't even notice them. It's the tanky reflect mobs that will rip ya, they'll rip ya for real.
With soul of Yugul, Taste of Hate, and Purity of ice I have no problems. I have noticed that hitting the diamond flask makes it a bit sketchier, usually I try to hit just atziri's and taste of hate while I kill a solo reflect mob. Vaal pact would also help. Druidic rite and reduced AA mana reservation
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With 110% mana reservation the mana pool is really tight (89% with all the reduced mana reserved). Casting orb or storms and enduring cry back to back would leave me without enough mana to attack. I considered druidic rite to be a semi damage node as well given I run 4 offensive flasks. I choose reduced AA mana reservation because it is the only aura I will never swap out. Maybe this is excessive but I haven't ripped to reflect since I started using purity of ice and I didn't want to give up hatred.
In general for play I try to cast enduring cry and orb of storm on alternating packs or space out the casts between attacks. Leveling
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I leveled sunder 2h and switched to frostblades at lvl 22 with hand of thought and motion
Advancing fortress is good at lvl 46 Bloodseeker is awesome at lvl 62 5L a brass dome with the prophecy until you can get 6L ToA got real cheap My PoB
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Last edited by Cheezyblasters#4965 on Oct 5, 2017, 9:32:52 AM Last bumped on Sep 27, 2017, 11:30:46 PM
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I liked the concept. I too find that the Frost Blades Raiders are just too squishy. My answer to that has been a Berserker, but I've spent quite some time on PoB trying to make other ascendancies work and couldn't come up with anything satisfatory. So I'd really like to take a look at your PoB.
However, I couldn't import it. The code PoB generates is just too long, and trying to copy it ends up saying the code isn't supported (it's probably copying some spaces that it shouldn't). Could you please share the build using the pastebin link instead? EDIT: So after trying a long time I decided to make one more try after posting here, and it worked. Oh well. Still, I think it would make your build more presentable if you shared the pastebin link instead, so I'll keep the suggestion. Chris Wilson took my soul Last edited by DanutMS#4549 on Sep 27, 2017, 11:31:56 PM
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